Training Initiatives

Michael White

Michael saw counseling work and training as side-by-side commitments. Through his international teaching commitments, he spread narrative ideas and practices to thousands of people. His trainings were opportunities to reinvigorate, stimulate new possibilities and (re)connect with others. Sadly, we can no longer look forward to Michael’s workshops. It is now our collective responsibility to create our own narrative trainings. This online series is one of many training initiatives.

Narrative Practices Adelaide

Maggie Carey, Rob Hall, and Shona Russell

In April, 2011, Maggie Carey, Shona Russell and Rob Hall recorded this conversation about Michael White’s intentions in starting Narrative Practices Adelaide. During this conversation, they spoke about ongoing training initiatives, their intention to continue to share the work that Michael shared with them, and to continue to collaborate with other centres. This includes:The Narrative Practices Adelaide certificate programme (and other Adelaide-based courses); work with Aboriginal workers in Adelaide – finding themselves on the edge of our learning; International Training programmes; The Narrative Practice & Collaborative Inquiry Study Group (now known as “Th Collab).

Have a listen and then please continue the conversation by adding something about a training initiative that particularly excites you.

Transcript

Rob: In an ongoing sense, that counseling work still continues, which is what Michael saw as being central. Also the training is now incorporated into the broader training of our certificate course. We all work together.

Maggie:  That’s another initiative, isn’t it? Should we talk about that?

Shona: Yes!  Let’s talk about training. We’ve also continued offering one-week intensives in the skills of narrative practice. We also started an initiative that has a history in what Maggie and I,  Sue Mann, Alice Morgan and Carolyn Mackey have done before – to hold courses that ran over a year,  which enabled  practitioners to think carefully, to read between, and grapple with putting narrative practice into a variety of contexts. I thought it was an exciting initiative for us to start that in this new center. This is our second year. In terms of extending narrative practices and networking, we’ve been thrilled to join a network of online practitioners through Peggy Sax’s work with “Re-authoring Teaching.”  That has brought a new dimension for all of us.

( Laughter)

Maggie: Yes! There is quite a world of conversation there to be had.  Is the laughter a reflection of this new world that we are not quite familiar with yet?  But we are getting more familiar–it’s a kind of stretching out, proximal development, around using online learning and the amazing possibilities that provides. That has been a real opening for participants in our course.

Shona:  This is our second year of using online learning as part of our one-year training. We are thrilled to have appointed a participant, Sonja,  from our first year course, to come in as a mentor this year to support the students in their engagement with the online learning.

Maggie:  It’s been fantastic to have somebody who is skilled to invite people into those new territories, and who has been very supportive of us in our roles as facilitators of learning. The ongoing certificate course is a really nice chance for us to get together, and the work with men is built in as a core part of it.